Bleak Generation

The visages’ defence holds. Still no one suspected their illusion last session. I used the Madness of Orcus d100 table from Out of the Abyss/Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes for the church bell insanity effects. Top Tip: Glyphimhor Decide in advance what Glyphimhor will talk about, and what he wants from the players, otherwise things will get comically awkward. I decided Glyphimhor mostly wanted to watch PCs grovel and beg for mercy, remind 'em of the good old days. I didn’t bother to stat him in full, but if a fight breaks out, use the same mental stats as a balor, give him about 65HP, remove all his attacks, give him the 3 spells in the adventure, i.e. fear, suggestion, ray of enfeeblement. Orcus or Tenebrous? I am going to call a spade a spade, and the Demon Prince of Undeath the Demon Prince of Undeath. Why not Tenebrous? Reasoning as follows: 1. Orcus is an exciting villain 2. The party’s played this game for ages, there’s nothing wrong with throwing them a frickin bone...

Back in the temple we were. Into the bag of holding went the dodgy gold band, best not touch it right now. The tunnel exiting the temple led to the last unexplored room of the fortress. Expecting deadly combat, the employees of Truetemper’s Solution braced themselves and hopped through. Inside, they found the next chamber was all but empty, with only a shaft of dark blue light illuminating the dark. M’narr inspected the odd faces carved into the stone of the walls, and Ragados searched for hidden doors and threw a bit of food (dried banana) at the light. Soon all that's left to do in the room was touch the light, so Ragados gives it just the tip. Of his finger. The light wanes and a monstrous withered figure appears: a balor, perhaps? But conspicuously weakened. It loomed over them with a wicked grin, and demanded they grovel. After briefly weighing up the situation, the party decided it best to grovel. Thus began a conversation with the withered demon. Quick to take offence, it ...

Someone clearly lived in this forsaken place. Someone powerful. But whatever, our planewalkers were determined to rob ‘em of everything that wasn’t nailed to the floor. Laden down with gold, swords, and some undeniably cursed wands, the adventurers floated straight over to the neighbouring room to see what they could nick next. There was no treasure here, though: just a huge machine that filled half the chamber, levers of bone sticking out from control panels of some pale, almost fleshy material. They pondered its purpose for some time. What to do with the helmet attached to it? What might be in the large opaque egg at its centre? M’narr’s curiosity got the better of him again, but he channelled it to less reckless purposes, casting identify on the machine. Discovering the thing’s purpose – to permanently transfer a creature’s consciousness and soul into the construct held within the egg – was enough to satisfy M’narr’s curiosity this time. He quickly set the machine to overheat wha...

Random encounters make dungeons a more tense place, discourage dawdling, and can force players to make tough decisions. The rules below also mean that the dungeon gets more dangerous the longer the party lingers! When to Check for an Encounter I roll a d10 to check for an encounter every time the party stops for 10 minutes or longer, eg to cast a ritual spell (they get to cast their first ritual for free, no roll required). I check for encounters twice during a short rest; consider halving this if you have short rest classes (eg warlocks) in the party. I don't let my party take a long rest inside the dungeon. There is a 10% chance that an encounter occurs. If no encounter occurs, the chance of an encounter occuring on subsequent checks increases by 10%, to a maximum of 50%. This probability is cumulative, i.e. 10% on your first roll, 20% on your second, and so on). Keep track of the encounter probability as the game progresses - I just have a 10 in one corner of the page that coun...

This session would’ve been way more difficult if one player had not digitised his home-made map of the dungeon (I gave him an inspiration point for doing it). Much of the dungeon was run as-is. I simplified the soul-transferring machine by ruling it would permanently transfer a PC’s soul if they used it, fixable with a casting of soul jar perhaps. Gave the construct 20 STR, and planned to take the victim PC’s stats and alter them thus: +3 CON, -4 DEX, -4 CHA. The Temple/Skeleton Circlet Most Important Advice: Don’t make your players roll a skill check to notice the circlet of skeleton control! If they look at the statue just tell them it’s there. It was 12-Bar that had the vision from Anarchocles when the party broke into the Old Church. I've not 100% decided the facts, but I’m making the dead god in Sigil’s Old Church the same berk whose skull makes the Wand of Orcus. I think it was 12-Bar who had the vision, I see now there’s no record of it in past notes. The vision had...

Tri-Flower Frond Beautiful and deadly in equal measure, countless unsuspecting adventurers have fallen victim to the tri-flower frond's captivating yellow blooms, which subdue and slowly digest their prey. Medium plant, unaligned AC 13 HP 25 Speed 0 ft STR 3 (-4) DEX 16 (+3) CON 16 (+3) INT 1 (-5) WIS 9 (-1) CHA 1 (-5) Damage Immunities: poison Condition Immunities: blinded, deafened, frightened, poisoned Senses: blindsight 10 ft (blind beyond this radius), passive Perception 9 Challenge: 2 (450XP) Bottom-Heavy. The tri-flower frond has advantage on saving throws against being knocked prone. False Appearance. While the tri-flower frond remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from an ordinary plant. Multiattack. The tri-flower frond makes three Tendril attacks, if available. Tendril. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5ft, one target. Hit: 1 piercing damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 16) and the tri-flower frond can't use the same tendril on another tar...

Xeg-Yi Incredibly rare creatures thought to be sentient balls of pure necrotic energy, residing on the Negative Energy Plane. It is thought that if a Xeg-Yi were ever to see its Positive Energy counterpart, the Xag-Ya, both creatures would be overwhelmingly compelled to collide and annihilate each other. Deeply alien creatures. Some are curious, some are murderous.   Medium aberration, unaligned AC 18 HP 66 Speed Fly 20ft Saving Throw Proficiencies: All (+3 prof. bonus) STR 3 (-4) DEX 16 (+3) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 12 (+1) CHA 16 (+3) Damage Immunities: Acid, cold, lightning, necrotic, poison, psychic, thunder; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical weapons Condition Immunities: charmed, frightened, grappled, petrified, prone, restrained, stunned Senses: darkvision 120 ft, passive Perception 11 Languages: Deep Speech Challenge: 2 (450XP) Explosion. If it is reduced to 0 hit points, the Xeg-Yi explodes. Creatures within 10ft of the Xeg-Yi must make a DEX sav...